The beginning and the end
Back in the day there was the hope that Windows phones will become the phone for enterprises and the everyday person because of its easy to use interface.
But you may have noticed that Microsoft phones were not as big of a hit as the other two operating systems. Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android serve millions if not billions of customers every day.
Microsoft’s withdrawal of the mobile market
In the end of 2017, Microsoft decided to stop the production of windows 10 phones. To dig further in this matter one can look at the market share by operating systems. The two key players as expected are:
Android with over 85% as of today and IOS with around 13 % .
Windows 10 OS is marginal but still in use in many companies as in today.
On January 18, Microsoft announced it will stop supporting Windows 10 Mobile as of December 10, 2019. Forcing current customers of Microsoft 10 based devices to switch to Android or IOS.
Source: Gartner
This brings up the question which of the two mobile operating systems work better for companies?
Many Tech giants are using Android, due to its advantage of the devices being open source. This allows for more flexibility to work with business softwares. For a company which is price sensitive and wants to keep up with the latest tech, Android offers budget devices of any kind.
Until a few months back iOS was the only operating system which would sustain Single Sign-On.
Single Sign-On or SSO in short is the authentication process that allows a user to access multiple applications with one set of login credentials. SSO is a common procedure in enterprises, where a client accesses multiple resources connected to a local area network.
Nevertheless this is history, Papers a software company located in Switzerland, has solved this issue with a product called Hypergate. It would facilitate the use of Android OS based devices in a business environment. It closes the Kerberos Single Sign-On gap on Android Enterprise.
Kerberos authentication is currently the default authorization technology used by Microsoft Windows. Implementations of Kerberos exist in Apple OS, FreeBSD, UNIX, and Linux. It has also become a standard for websites and Single-Sign-On implementations across platforms.
This makes Android phones more attractive and secure for companies. Further, Android Enterprise is specifically made for Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD), corporate-owned and dedicated device modes. Allowing every company to choose the perfect phone for their needs.
More and more companies are expected to switch to Android in the near future. They can expect the same comfort as on an Apple device.
